THE LEISURE HOUR.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1217, 28 June 1895, Page 30

THE LEISURE HOUR.

THE RETORN OF THE NATIVE. JABEZ JUGGED AT LAST.

MEMOIRS OF THE PAST.

From Our Own Correspondent. London, May 10.

There has been more fuss in newspaper land over the return of Jabez Balfour than there was over the visit of the Shah. A small army of special correspondents (who got, nothing for their pains) went down to the Tartar Prince's port of arrival in the hope of a word with the distinguished criminal, but the Government were too sharp for them, and whisked Jabez off.beforehand aboard the Customs launch. There* were, however, Mr Balfour's fe]low-pass;enger3 to "interview " concerning the prisoner's demeanour, appetite, and conversation. The latter, ail. aboard agreed, was delightful. Jabez talked with the easy grace of the Young Men's Christian Association on every conceivable topicbarring finance. The latter subject, and references to thj Liberator, the detectives forbada. It seems bo have been a charming passage. Jn a note of thanks to the captain (he wrote such letters to everybody) Jabez declared that but for circumstances painful circumstances—over which inspector Froost alone had control, the voyage would have been the happiest of his life. Ho also addressed an epistle to the Inspector himself, in which regard for his captor bubbled forth efFusivelj 7 -, and he stated somewhat enigmatically that had dear Froost come out, for him before ho w-»uld have boen there earlier. At thid. tho detective must have "saiole" many baiiles, especially when he remembered the ugjy rush and attempted rescue at Salta station. On arrival i ■ London Balfour w;i3 at once charged on some dozen counts at Bow street. He will atter all bo placed on uikl with his brother directors. Biitish justice may be slow, bub ib is inevitable inexorable.

As Balfour is likely to loom largo on the ho'r-zon now for some lime to come, the following fair sketch of his career will bo road with interest: lIIS OKJGIN AND BOYHOOD. The story of his career is of singular interest from reasons other than those immediately connected with the dramatic dlage ib lias now reached. Jabez was born in 1813 ; and his father was a man of considerable versatility, for at one time he kept a rag, bone, and bottle shop in Chelsea ; at another ho was a missionary ; and at another a messenger in one of'tins offices of the House of Commons That he was a man of unimpoashable integrity and respectability will be i Jg itly concluded from the fact that In vas for many years in the service of Parliament and never rose above obscurity. His piety was of the strictest Nonconformist kind, and his labours a 3 a London missionary and teetotal advocate brought him into association with the Rev. Jabez Burns, father of the Rev. Dawson Burna, D.D. by the grace of Bate's College, U.fi.A. " LitthH Jimmy Balfour," as the ox-marine store dealer was known in thd Committee rooms <if the House, possessed a wife ambitious for literary distinction in temperance and Nonconformist circles. The Rev. Jaboz Burns was in tho thirties editing a weekly journal devoted to tee-

f»talism, and to him she sent certain Btories and poems. This led to the association of the Balfours and the Burnses. Until then the Balfours lived over the rag and bone shop in Chelsea ; but they removed to Maida Hill, near to the chapel in Church street, Edge ware road, of which the Rev. .Jabez Burns was pastor. There they distinguished themselves in the propaganda of teetotalUm ; and when Jabez was bum his fir-it name was taken from that of the venerable divine, the father of the "watchdog" auditor. The family alliance was still further cemented by the marriage of this aame " watch-, d >g" auditor —the Rev. Dawson Bu ns—to a sister of Jabez Spencer. According to one very doubtful authority, yuuu.> Jabez was ''educated abroad"; out it seems to be pretty clear that in the days of his boyhood ho was a frequent visitor to the House of Commons under the guidance of his father, the messenger. The messenger was a worthy man, aud it needs but little imagination to conceive the pietisdc a mosphere in which young Jabez lived and moved. By his father's influence he obtained a situation as office boy with a firm of parliamentary agents in Great George street, and in due course blossomed into a clerkship. Tnat he was a good Christian young man, of the type Exeter Hall and the Young Women's Christian Association would have rejoiced in, goes without saying. It it not recorded of him that he ever whipped a top or pUyed marbles on his errands when in the office boy stage, or that he ever failed to go home to tea after he was promoted to a tail coat and a clerkship. But he had certain positive and excellent qualities which attracted the favourabe noiceofthe financial and business magnates who frequented the office—a quick intelligence, power of getting through, work, ready mastery of detail, and ambition to succeed in life. Another of his characteristics was a volubility of speech aud a glib persuasiveness, which he assiduously practised ou chapel platforms. He was a regular chapel goer, a fervent attendant at prayer'meetings, a rigid and a born schemer. THE LIBERATOR SCHEME. At the age of twenty five he conceived his great scheme of starting the Liberator Building Society---a combination of philanthropy and finance ; which had a forerunner, however, in the Alliance Building Society. The, Rev. Dawson Burns was one of the auditors of this society, and it was at one of its meetings, about two years before the; collapse of the Alliance group, that he made his famous speech on the duties of an auditor :—" What is an auditor ? Heoujht to be very much like a watch dog ; verj* careful to listen to any suspicious sound ; able to bark, and perhaps even to bite if necessary. The peculiarity of his position is this : that whereas the watch dog has to watch those outsida, he has to watch those who are inside. He has to bake care that those who have to manage the accounts do their business properly." Beyond reminding the public that Dr Dawson Burns was also associated with the Liberator, it, is unnecessary to say more about the Alliance group of companies, except that they got their money from thrifty Nonconformists, and came to grief from much the same causes as led to the ruin of the Liberator. But to return to Jabez. He saw that the idea on which the Alliance was founded —the idea of making a profit out of enterprises based on ostensibly philanthropic principles and conducted by «* Christian " man with the money of the elect—was a good one. He was in to »ch with people who could tap the savings of th> Nonconformist classes, and it 13 conceivable that he may have concluded.' that with proper management the failure of the Alliance need not be repeated. However that nny be, at the age of twenty five ho found colognes in Mr Alderman Lusk, Mr Edward Miall, the Rev. Jabez Burns, and Mr Charles Reed, and formed the Liberator. THE PROSPERITY OP JABEZ.

Into its history we need nob now enter. In the sense of obtaining money —chiefly from Nonconformist congregations and temperance, societies, through the agency of ministers and lecturers it prospered ama/.ingly. Jabez grew with it in riches, in bulk, and in ambitions. Flo married and settled down at Croydon, in a palatial home, and there he became a pillar of Nonconformity. He identified himself with the local affairs of the town, and when it was madß a borough he became its first maj'or. He went to chapel with unvarying regularity, presented the edihce with a peal of belld, and missed no opportunity of appearing on a public platform, or of writing a cheque for a philanthropic purpose. He was an artist in religiosity, and his speeches bear witness to the fervour of his faith and the intimacy of his relations with tha Higher Powers. Meanwhile he missed no chance of drawing money into the Liberator, and it 3 allied companies. It was at Croydon that he discovered Hobb3, who would nob now be serving his twelve years' imprisonment but for his association with the B dfour gany ; and portraits of the pair in their mayoral robes (for Hobbs succeeded Balfour in the office of mayor) hung for years in the Council Chamber. Finance, religion, and municipal work were nob, however, sufficient for Jabez. In politics he was a Radical from babyhood, and to the Radical party he gave the services of his tongue. In the Parliament of 1880 he t;ot himself elected for the Tamworth Division, and his supposed greatness as

a financier speedily made him a prominent member of the House. He was then director of no fearer than thirteen companies, aud by the parliamentary guinea-pigs whs regarded with profound respec In the election of 1886, Walworth had the honour of rejecting, him ; but at the by-election at Burnley in 1889 he was returned unopposed, and once more took an active part—chiefly in Committee—in the work of the House. He made himself very popular in his constituency, and at the election of 1892 worked with tremendous Zial, bringing up the Liberal majority fiom 545 to 1415. He was then at the zenith of his success. Ha had a fine country house Burcot Manor, near Oxford—where ho entertaiued hi 3 political aud financial associates with lavish hospitality. He was one of the grnat men of the National Liberal Club, a subscriber to party funds, and a candidate for office. He had marked himself down as PostmasterGerieral in 1892, r.nd was not a little annoyed to hud that Mr Gladstone had handed the portfolio to Mr Arnold Morley. At "his time he must have known that the failure of the Liberator group wa3 inevitable before the year was out ; but he played a game of magnificent bluff. The crash came on September 2, 1892 ; and in a few weeks Mr Jabez was in Argentina, whence he has now, with difficulty, been extradited. PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS. As all the world knows by this time, Jabez was a man of remarkable appearance. The lrge coarse head, the massive neck, the huge body aet on the dumpy and limping legs, made up a personality decidedly unprepossessing. Yet the man exercised a singular fascination upon many people. He could be all smiles and plausibility, aud wheu he chose to be seductivo and insinuating he was irresistible. To people in his service he is said to have been rough and overbearing ; but even those who hated him on that account do not seem to have suspected him of rascality. That he was arrogant and despotic iu his capacity as a man of business is certainly the impression which his co-directors desired to create when they confessed their ignorance of the conduct of the companies which he and they were supposed to manage for the shareholders.

HIS ALLEGED OFFENCES AGAINST THE LAW.

To endeavour to trace the alleged wrongful acts aud omissions with which Balfour stands accusbd would necessitate a long and detailed account of the rise and development of the Liberator group —an account that would have to be supplemented by the admissions of the directors in the public examinations made under the Winding up Acts. This aspect of Balfour's career will be developed in due course in the courts, and need not now be discussed. It should, however, be said that the treaty with Argentina and the Extradition Act of 1870 prohibit trial for any offences except those for which Balfour is surrendered. A legal authority— The Law Journal —says that so far as" one can learn by reference to the judgment ordering Balfour's extradition the offences on which the surrender is granted are : (1) That when director of A company ho conspired with others to obtain, and did obtain, by fraud £20,000, between January 12 and March 18, 1886; (2) felony on quitting England, taking £4OO with him, within four months of his°bankruptcy (32 and 33 Vic. c. 69, s. 12) ; (3) a series of offences against the agent seetions of the Larceny Act, 1861, with respect to entries in the books and accounts of the companies with which he was concerned.

Apparently, then, it is on these charges, and these alone, that Balfour can be tried.